As mentioned in my last post, I’m going to share with you tips on how to nurture your affiliates.

Those of you who have read the Insider Advertising Report will know that to be successful in advertising, you have to understand the characteristics of your prospects. Likewise in affiliate management, you have to understand the characteristics of your affiliates.

Here are the characteristics of your affiliates:

1. They are unmotivated.
2. They are uncreative.
3. They are lazy.

I believe these characteristics hold true for all affiliates, until you have their attention and interest in your program.

Once you understand the characteristics of your affiliates, nurturing them becomes a simple task of asking the right questions. The tough part is answering those question.

Questions that I keep asking myself are:

1. Why would someone promote our website?
2. How can we encourage affiliates to take action and start promoting our website?
3. What other creative tools can I develop to make it easier for our affiliates to promote us?
4. Since affiliates are lazy, is there a way to promote our program without having to promote it?

Let’s look at how we answer these questions in one of our websites, LeadsLeap.com.

1. Why would someone promote our website?

When our members promote LeadsLeap, other than making money, they are at the same time building 10 levels of leads whom they can advertise to.

In addition, whenever their referrals read ads, they earn advertising credits on autopilot. Many of our members earn thousands of advertising credits every month without reading any ad on their own because they have a team of people earning credits for them.

2. How can we encourage affiliates to take action and start promoting our website?

Our answer to this question is to have a Bonus Credit reward program, where members with just 20 personal referrals will receive 500 advertising credits every month, forever! Needless to say, many members try to get their 20 referrals by hook or by crook.

In fact, the rewards do not just end there. The more people they refer, the more bonus credits they receive every month. That’s why we have affiliates promoting our program on a continual basis.

3. What other creative tools can I develop to make it easier for our affiliates to promote us?

One powerful tool (or rather a system) that has brought lots of traffic to us is our blog referral system.

The way it works is quite simple. Our blog (which is the blog you’re reading now) is a viral blog. Our members can send traffic to any article in the blog with their affiliate ID. When the traffic signs up, it becomes their leads. When the traffic click ads, the members earn ad credits. This system alone has brought us lots of traffic because whenever we make a blog post, many of our members will inform their leads about the article. Sharing good information is always easier than sharing an opportunity.

To further leverage on this system, we create a LeadsLeap Widget that members can place on their websites. With this widget, our members will be able to send traffic to read the useful information on our blog while helping them to build leads and credits on autopilot.

4. Since affiliates are lazy, is there a way to promote our program without having to promote it?

Is it possible to get someone to promote your program without that person promoting it?

Definitely yes. Google uses this trick all the time.

The answer is to provide useful tools that webmasters can use. At the same time, those tools carry your brand.

We have quite a number of such tools and we are developing more. An example is our SlideSense advertising system. Members can use it for their own advertising purpose, but indirectly they are promoting LeadsLeap. Other tools we’ve developed include our Advanced Link Cloaker and List Building Script.

Some Final Notes

You may think LeadsLeap is an advertising system. That’s why we have the luxury of advertising credits and tools that we can leverage on to come out with incentives that address to these questions.

It’s not true. (At least you can’t allow yourself to believe it’s true.)

Regardless of which niche you’re in, you will be able to find a similar solution for your niche. Just believe and think hard. One day, you may wake up with an innovative idea that may just work.

There are many ways to promote affiliate products. Of all the methods, my preferred way is to create “my own product” and promote affiliate products indirectly.

“My own product” can be in the form of a content website, a blog, a forum, a piece of software that I give away to build list or a free online application or service.

The key concept here is that I’m building and promoting traffic for my own product. As i do so, I’m at the same time channeling traffic to other products I’m affiliated to.

Most affiliates are attracted to the idea of promoting affiliate products without a website or with a simple one-page site. I agree these are faster way to make money. The problem is the growth potential is limited.

Building a business is not about making money. It’s about building a long-lasting asset, a cash cow that you can milk for many years.

An example of how to promote affiliate products by creating your own product:

Recently I came across a website called instantdomainsearch.com. It’s fast becoming one of my favorite sites.

This website allows me to ‘instantly’ search for available domain names. (Honestly, the search result is not really updated. But it’s good enough for preliminary search). What’s more important is usually, when I found a domain that I wanted, I’ll just click through its GoDaddy link to buy the domain name right away. This means the website is earning some commissions.

This is a perfect example of what I mean by creating your own product and promote affiliate products indirectly.

An important advantage of creating your own product is that you have a lot more ways to drive traffic.

- You can do SEO
- You can do joint venture
- You can add your own product for sale and build affiliates to promote for you
- You can build a list
- More importantly, if your own product creates real value, it will attract traffic automatically through words of mouth, which is the most powerful traffic generation method.

This method takes more time and effort, but it will give you more lasting income, more growth potential and eventually more stability.

Last thing to add. Remember the free “Mind Your Own Biz” list builder script that I’ve developed for our members? Every strategy that I advocate and every product that I develop for you are in line with each other. Be sure to explore the tools that we’ve prepared for you and see how they can help you to grow YOUR OWN business.

I just received $202.90 in affiliate commission from one of my niche websites that I have not touched for several years. Not bad, considering that I hardly spend time on that website.

In today’s blog, I’m going to explain to you how you can do the same.

What I’ve done is probably the most traditional form of affiliate marketing, where I create a content website educating people on a niche topic and recommend products that I’m affiliated to.

For years, the website has been receiving free targeted web traffic from the search engines. In fact, it has been ranking in the top 3 position in Google for some important keywords in that niche.

Not to beat around the bush, here’s exactly how to do it:

1) First, you need relevant content.

For example, if you are promoting stock trading products, your first move is to create a website teaching people how to trade the stock market.

To your visitors, your website should look like a good resource center where they can learn about stock trading.

But from marketing angle, your website is actually made up of articles that are written to target certain keywords so as to get free targeted web traffic from the search engines.

2) Next, you need backlinks.

With targeted keywords and great articles, the next element you need is backlink.

Keyword + Content + Backlinks = Endless Search Engine Traffic

Once you have these 3 elements, your free targeted web traffic will grow gradually on autopilot.

3) Lastly, you need to convert the traffic into sales

Knowing how to convert the traffic into sales is a science. Here I’ll share with you 2 common strategies:

- Give them headache, sell them Panadol

People love free info, but they prefer quick fix.

Using the stock trading example, while your website may be teaching people how to trade the stock market, you can easily recommend some trading ebooks that give them some surefire trading strategies.

Or if you are building a website about acne problem, you can easily recommend an ebook that teaches them how to get rid of acne in 7 days.

- Teach them how, sell them the tools

Your website focuses on providing the know-how. In order to do what you teach, you recommend your readers to use certain tools, which you are affiliated to.

For example, if you are building a stock trading website, you can easily recommend tools like brokerage firm, trading software etc.

That’s it. A simple and straight-forward way to make some affiliate commission using free targeted web traffic. The method may be old-fashioned, but it still works in today’s environment.

Affiliate millionaire, Ewen Chia, will be launching his Secret Affiliate Weapon 2 on this coming Tuesday. He gave me a review copy. At first I though it was a revised version of his flagship product, Secret Affiliate Weapon 1, which I purchased many years back.

I was wrong.

The only similarity between the two is the price, $9.97. It’s under-priced for sure. That’s why the first version sold more than 50,000 copies.

Today I’m going to leak out some content taught in Secret Affiliate Weapon 2. (Please don’t tell Ewen!)

Leaked Content From Secret Affiliate Weapon 2

Most of us understand the importance of list building, but undervalue the power of list management.

What’s the difference?

List building is about getting more opt-ins. List management is about getting more response.

Most of us tend to believe that when someone is capable of making more sales, he must have a huge list. We simply refuse to believe that the person is better in list management and hence he can generate better response from a small list. Ewen Chia is one such person.

There is no doubt that Ewen has a huge list in internet marketing niche. But in other niches, his list is as small as many of us. Yet he can generate good response from his list. His secret? Better list management!

Without spilling all the beans, here’re some of his list management secrets extracted from Secret Affiliate Weapon 2:

1) “Before the title of every email message, you should always include your name.”

As explained by Ewen, this strategy allows the recipient to immediately recognize that the email has come from you. If you’ve established yourself as the authority in your niche, this simple tactic can dramatically increase the email open rate as well as the response.

We use a similar tactic in LeadsLeap. For example, all our newsletters will begin with [LeadsLeap] followed by the email subject. This is a double-edged sword - either your subscribers delete your emails immediately or they keep your emails because they know you provide values to them.

Note: Very few (and I really mean very few) marketers use this tactic. This tactic will lose its novelty if every marketer does the same trick. Hopefully that day will not come too soon. A few years back, we were taught to include recipient’s name in the email subject. Now almost every marketer is doing it, including spammers.

2) “You must always remember that you’re dealing with individuals who have exactly the same needs and desires as the next person.”

If you understand the essence of this tip, you’ll know why you are not getting response from your list.

Whenever you draft an email, always put yourself in the shoe of your readers and ask what is it that they want. How can you satisfy their needs and desires?

If you want to promote a product, are you focusing on selling the product benefits or you are focusing on how the product can help your readers achieve their needs and desires?

Just a shift in focus can make a huge difference in the response.

3) “You must know when and how to promote.”

How you create your autoresponder email series can make a drastic difference in the success of your promotion effort. According to Ewen, there are certain guidelines that you should follow.

First, you should keep pushing the initial product that you are promoting, for at least 6-10 email messages over a period of time, focusing on different benefits of the product.

Secondly, you need to demonstrate a degree of continuity and consistency in your email. This means you need to be consistent in your advice and not changing your mind in every email message. This will give people the clarity and confidence that they need to overcome their fear of buying. A mistake that many marketers make is promoting too many different things at one time, hence confused and intimidated the readers.

Ewen suggested in Secret Affiliate Weapon 2 that over the course of a year, you should recommend no more than 3 or 4 products in your email series. This means you’ll choose 3 or 4 products and create a 6-10 part email series for each of them. You’ll then start with the first product, run the full email series and then move on to the next one. When you’re done with all the 4 products, go back to the first one and start all over again.

Ok, I think I’ve shared enough. If I continue writing, Ewen may kill me.

If you want to learn the complete strategies on how Ewen generate 7 figure income from affiliate marketing, I suggest that you get Secret Affiliate Weapon 2.

Here Comes My ‘Crazy’ Bonus

If you get Secret Affiliate Weapon 2 through my link before 6 September 2009 12pm EST, you will get one month LeadsLeap PRO membership worth $27. For existing PRO members, you’ll get your next month fee refunded.

Is that crazy enough?

I’ve never given such a crazy bonus before. I do this to thank Ewen for all the help he has given me.

With the traffic that our PRO membership sends to you and the strategies you adopt from Ewen Chia’s Secret Affiliate Weapon 2, you should be well-positioned to start your own affiliate marketing empire.

Here’s what you need to do to claim your bonus:

1) On 1 Sept 2009 12pm EST, clear the cookies in your browser.
2) Click this link to order Secret Affiliate Weapon 2.
3) Open a support ticket and paste your Clickbank receipt in the ticket.

We will handle the rest.

My objective of this article is to give you an overview of how to make money with affiliate marketing, so that you can make a better decision on how you want to kick start with affiliate marketing.

Generally, I can categorize the different ways of making money with affiliate marketing into 3 basic ways. Let’s discuss each of them……

1) First Way - Direct Promotion

The first way to make money with affiliate marketing is by promoting the affiliated product directly .

A popular idea that many beginners are taught is to find a good product from Clickbank, create an ad for it and advertise to get traffic and sales.

Or if it’s a business opportunity, one may simply advertise the affiliate link to get traffic and downlines.

This method of making money looks very attractive, especially among the newbies. Some marketers I’ve spoken to said that this is their preferred method because the money is fast and they don’t have to bother about customer service and site maintenance.

This may be the easiest way to start making money with affiliate marketing. But if you ask me for advice, I would suggest that you put in a bit more effort and move beyond this method.

Reason: If you’ve been reading my work, you’ll know that I don’t fancy quick money. My focus is always on ‘building’. For long term success, you need to spend your time building something, either build a list, a network, a website or a community. What I don’t like about this method is you’re sending your hard earned traffic away, without building anything for yourself.

2) Second Way - Build A List

A better alternative to the first approach is to build a list. Instead of sending the traffic directly to your affiliated site, you focus your marketing effort in building a list FIRST, promoting other affiliated products LATER.

There are many variations to this method.

The most common strategy is to create a squeeze page, give away some useful freebies, and entice people to opt-in.

Another smarter strategy is to create a product in your niche, design a big launch around it, get other marketers to promote it for you, and instantly build a huge list that you can use in the future.

It takes a lot more time to set up such a website as compared to the first approach. But you are building yourself a list and reputation in your industry. You can easily build upon any success you have established and earn more in the future.

But there is one important downside to this approach.

Other than your free gift or product, there is nothing much on your website. Once your visitors get what they want, they are not likely to go back to your website again. The only way you can build further relationship with them is probably through a newsletter.

3) Third Way - Build A Useful Website

The third way to make money with affiliate marketing is to build a useful website around your niche.

The easiest form would be a blog. You can build a list and then start a blog to update your list with useful tips, promoting other affiliated products at the same time.

Or you can create a service site that provides useful online tools that people in your niche can use. This will entice them to come back to your website again and again.

One of my personal preference is to create a content website that is full of useful articles in a particular niche. The articles will help me to attract free traffic from the search engines. The website will have several product recommendations from me and these are the products I am affiliated to.

The disadvantage of this approach is of course the time and effort required to create and (for some) to maintain the sites. But the benefit is obvious. Once the initial traffic is built, you are likely to see continuous traffic to your website and hence consistent affiliate commissions to your account.

Although this third way is my preferred way of making money with affiliate marketing, it may not be the best way for you. There are many success stories in each of these approaches. You need to try out the different methods and see which one you are most comfortable with. Hopefully my discussion above can help you kick start with your preferred method right away.

Today’s discussion is on using Adwords for affiliate marketing. It is my reply to the question from our member, HuiTzy.

I found her question pretty informative and it will relate to many of our members. I’m going to show her question in orange color and my comment or reply in black, so you can follow my train of thought as you go along.

Ready? Let’s start……

Firstly a very quick thanks for all the services you are providing i.e. your blog, product and free coaching.

I am currently setting up Adwords Campaign to drive traffic to affiliate products. My goal now is to “test” which of them are profitable and worth my time to further invest.

Here are my steps,
1. select several related niches eg: how to stop procrastination, how to increase productivity, how to focus. (I am doing this so that when I am going to advance level I can cross promote my list.)

The idea of related niche is good, but if you are a beginner, you may be thinking too big. If I were you, I’ll diversify as much as possible and test different niches from different industries.

Your selection of products to promote should be based on how well they are selling, regardless of whether they are in related niche. A good practice is to go to Clickbank.com > Marketplace and check the gravity rating. For example, if you search for products related to procrastination, most of the gravity ratings are less than 5. You can treat gravity ratings as a measure of how well a product is selling. Popular products usually have a gravity of more than 100. 5 is really way to low.

Instead of thinking of related niches, my advice is to fight a guerilla war, diversity and attack only products that sell well. Don’t think of going to any advance level. Take this chance to brush up your advertising and marketing skills.

2. select two affiliate products or more that I think will sell for each of the niches.

If you are doing a review page, you can promote 2 to 3 similar products at the same time. If you are advertising the products individually, you should treat each product as independent entity and select base on how well they are selling.

For your info, for each product that you test, you are likely to spend up to $100 before you can tell if the product is profitable. If you test 2 products in 5 niches, that’s 10 products in total and it can cost you $1000 to test. If you are mentally and financially unprepared, you chance of giving up prematurely is extremely high.

3. set up adwords campaign for each of the products.
4. track them so that i can know which keyword(s) and product(s) is/are profitable.
5. focus on those profitable products and scale up the sale.

Currently I am in step 3 and I am wondering should I directly link my ads to the sale page or to my own landing page? Based on what I heard, it is always good to link to landing page instead of sale page and landing page is also sort of “pre-sell” page. BUT I just want to so called “test” the market and I don’t want to spend too much time in this step. Only when I know I am able to convert well from that particular product or niche, I will then put all my focus in marketing such as building list, pre-sell, provide incentive etc. So I would like to hear what’s your opinion.

You should use a presell page, in most cases.

Think about it, you are going to invest $100 dollar to advertise for a product, and you are saying that you don’t want to spend too much time doing a pre-sell page?

I would like to focus on something that you said, “Only when I know I am able to convert well from that particular product or niche, I will then put all my focus in marketing such as building list, pre-sell, provide incentive etc.”

You see, if you’ve done your research, you should only promote products that convert well. If the product is not converting for you, it simply means that your marketing technique is inferior.

Imagine this, you advertise a product (that’s proven to convert well), but you don’t get any sales. What are you going to do? Change to another product? Or start preparing a pre-sell page?

The market is competitive. Your competitors are doing all kinds of stunts to get sales. Your job is to come into the market, with better tricks hopefully and compete with other marketers. Before you spend money to advertise, you should go to Google, do a search for the keywords that you are targetting, find out what the other advertisers are doing, see how they lure clicks and promote sales. Next you should come out with better tricks (in your opinion) and test if your better tricks work.

Your testing should be a test of your marketing strategy, not a test of whether a product can sell well.

My questions:
1. Are my steps going to work?

Anything is possible. I don’t dare to say your steps will not work. They are just not what I’ll do.

2. Sale page or landing page? All right to be honest, I have no clue about creating a good landing page. How much time it is going to take and in what format a landing page has to be? Seriously I am not keen to provide a “review” because I didn’t buy the product so I don’t want to crank out a false story to cheat my potential customers.

I think you have to get over this mental block. If you want to be a professional affiliate marketer, it’s your job to promote products and make them sell. Imagine if you are engaged to create a TV commercial for a product, are you going to try out the product and be very happy about it before coming out with an ad that sells? Treat it as a profession. There is nothing evil about it.

Of course, if you feel that a product is a scam or has lots of negative feedbacks, you can choose not to promote it. You do not have to force yourself to promote products that you don’t feel comfortable with. You can be ethical and professional at the same time.

3. If your answer is link to landing page. Could you show me some resources to create content for landing page?

Creating a presell page is not difficult. These two recent articles should be suffice to help you.

How To Write An Affiliate Presale Letter
How To Find Testimonials For Your Presell Page

Last week we discussed how to write an affiliate presell page and one reader asked “how to find testimonials for the presell page”. I thought this is an interesting topic and many of you probably have the same question.

So in today’s blog, let’s discuss the different ways to find testimonials for your presell page….

1) Your own testimonial

There is no doubt that the best testimonial is from your personal experience with the product. You can provide your own proof, such as earning or traffic screenshots, to show the prospects that what you’re promoting is indeed a good product that works.

But if you are promoting hundred and one things, or you’ve just started an online opportunity, it’s almost impossible for you to have your own testimonial. In that case, you need to resort to other creative alternatives.

2) Get from the product seller

I briefly discussed this last week. You can either use testimonials from the product sales page or email the product seller for more testimonials.

Given a choice, it’s better not to use the same testimonials as the ones in the product sales page. The reason is obvious - you don’t want your prospects to see that those testimonials are not independent.

Most product sellers will be happy to facilitate you with more testimonials, with photographs if you request. Some sellers even have a dedicated page that lists down all the testimonials they’ve received. You can select those that are not used in the sales page for your presell page.

3) Get from other product users

Google for “ProductName forum” and you are likely to find people discussing about the product you are promoting.

Users of the product are likely to share their experience with the product. Your job is to gather the positive feedbacks and use them as the ‘independent’ testimonials in your presell page.

Some forums even have moderators reviewing the product. If a moderator gives a thumb up for the product, his review is also a good testimonial that you can use.

4) Get from other affiliate marketers

Google for “ProductName review” and you are likely to find other marketers’ presell pages promoting the same product.

This is a good source for you because they are likely to write a lot of good things about the product.

Some marketers even provide their personal screenshots as proof that the product works. If you find such a presell page, bingo! Borrow their screenshots and quote their testimonials in your presell page.

5) Get video testimonials

Last but not least, search YouTube! Video testimonial is powerful. If you can find someone giving a video testimonial on the product, use it!

How To Make Other People’s Testimonials Look Like Yours, Without Cheating

This article will not be complete without the following discussion.

So far I’ve discussed the different ways to find testimonials for your presell page, and most of them are other people’s testimonials. To increase the conversion rate, you need to make those testimonials look like yours, so as to make the prospects think that you are recommending the product because you’ve benefited from it.

No, you are not going to cheat and claim that those testimonials are yours!

The trick is through the smart use of words.

For example, say if you just manage to find an earning screenshot and 3 other testimonials, you can easily create a presell page with a headline that says “If A 19 Year Old Girl Can Earn $9,285 In One Month Spending Less Than 5 Hours A Week, So Can You. Proof Below……“. Below this headline, show the earning screenshot. Next, say something like “Don’t just believe in me. Check out what my peers are saying about this product….“. List down the 3 testimonials you’ve gathered. Finally, add a link that says something like “Get Your Instant Access To The Same System That We Use”

That’s it. Technically, I never say that I’m the 19 year old girl with the screenshot proof. I also never say that I am making that kind of money. Lastly I didn’t say that I know those people who give the testimonials. But through the smart use of words, I manage to create an impression that I’m that 19 year old girl with that kind of income, having other friends equally benefiting from the product, now highly recommending the product to you.

For those who are advertising as an affiliate, I always advice them to write their own affiliate presale letter instead of advertising the standard sales page prepared by the product owner. There are 3 important reasons why such move is advisable:

1. People believe a 3rd party more than the product owner, even if they don’t know you! Your presale letter is the best tool to deliver your confidence in the product.

2. By not revealing too much about the product in your presale letter, you can increase prospects’ curiosity and they will be more interested to read through the actual sales letter.

3. You have more control over your advertised page. For example, you can build a list, follow up with the prospects and sell them other products. You can also track the click through rate to the sales page and determine if you are advertising to the correct target audience.

The big challenge is, how to write an effective affiliate presale letter?

Below is a simple format that has been working for me……

1) Story telling

A presale letter typically begins with the classic Feel-Felt-Found method which goes something like this… “I understand how you ‘FEEL’…. I was in your position before and I ‘FELT’ the same before…. Now I finally ‘FOUND’ the solution….

That’s only the beginning.

2) Give proof and sell dreams

To make the presale letter more powerful, you have to end the presale letter with 2 things - Proof and Dream.

Proof usually comes in the form of a written or video testimonial, which can easily be copied from the product sales letter.

Painting a dream requires some talent from you. If you are promoting a money making opportunity, post some of your pictures taken from your Europe tour, tell the prospect how your dream has come true.

3) Call to action

Last but not least, if you want to build a list, you will want them to opt-in to your list to get the full report on how you manage to solve the problem. You will only reveal the product that you’re promoting AFTER they’ve opt-in.

If you are not building a list, you can just give them a link to see the solution you’ve found, which is the product you’re promoting.

No Time For Long-Winded Presale Letter? Here’s The Short-Cut

1) Write a powerful headline that stirs curiosity and sells dream. For example, “Discover A Lucrative Alternative To MLM - You Are About To See A Simple Online System That Pulls In Over $21,900 A Month (Proof Below)…”

2) Throw in a few proofs, such as proof of earnings.

3) Throw in a few testimonials (with photographs if possible).

Tips: You can copy the proofs and testimonials from the actual sales letter. If you can get proofs and testimonials from other sources, it’s even better. One trick is to write to the company to ask them for other proofs and testimonials that are not used in the sales page.

4) End with a call to action, such as “Get Your Instant Access Now!”, “Get The Report Now!” and recently, one of my regular advertisers use this - “Click Here For More Testimonials”, which is not a bad idea I thought.

Today I’m going to share with you two simple online advertising strategies - one is pretty common and the other one is hardly known!

I call the first strategy “Review And Compare”, and the second strategy “Review And Complement”.

Online Advertising Strategy #1 - Review And Compare

This is the most common strategy used by many online advertisers.

The idea is to pick 2-3 similar products and compare their pros and cons.

You probably have seen such online advertisements before.

There are two approaches to deploy the Review And Compare strategy. One works better than the other.

1) “Independent Review” approach

In this approach, you simply provide an independent review of the 2-3 products that you’re comparing. Many online advertisers will give some star-ratings to the products and ‘purposely’ award more stars to the product that they support.

This advertising approach has been overly used and to be frank, it is not as effective as the second approach below.

2) “Personal Touch” approach

In this approach, instead of writing an independent review, you position yourself as the user of both products that you’re comparing.

The idea is to share your personal experience with the prospects and tell them which product works better for you.

For example, if you are promoting a make money online product, your story can be something like this:

“My name is blar blar blar. I’ve been struggling to make money online….(tell your sad story). Finally I decided to try out product XXX and product YYY….(describe the two products). With product XXX, I made $. But with product YYY, I made $$$. Since product YYY made me more money, if you want my recommendation, I will recommend product YYY. But to be honest, both products have their pros and cons. Here’s my full review of the two products…..”

In your online advertisement (a.k.a. your presell letter), you should include your photograph and email address so that people know that you are real.

The gist of this “personal touch” approach is to appear real and honest. You want to do everything you can to deliver the following messages:

- I’m a real person and I’m reachable.
- I experienced the problem that you’re experiencing now.
- I’ve tried and tested both products.
- Here’s the result I get after trying both products. If you follow what I do, you too should get the same result.

I hope you can see why this advertising approach is more powerful than the first one.

This approach is the basis of our second online advertising strategy…..

Online Advertising Strategy #2 - Review And Complement

In the Review And Compare strategy that we discuss above, your objective is to compare different products and help the prospects to decide which one is better. Using this strategy, the prospects will buy at most one product.

On the contrary, in the Review And Complement strategy, your objective is to recommend a line of products that complement each other.

If done correctly, instead of getting people to buy just ONE product out of the few you’re comparing, you may end up having people buying the whole line of products!

See how powerful this advertising strategy is?

To use this strategy effectively, we need to use the “personal touch” approach, i.e. tell your own story.

Your story can be something like this:

“My name is blar blar blar. I’ve been struggling to make money online….(tell your sad story). Finally I tried product AAA and I made $A. With some initial success, I decided to try product BBB. The beginning was tough. I was struggling to find traffic. Then I came across product CCC that taught me how to get traffic to my website. I followed the instructions and it worked! I also joined website DDD and EEE, which further boosted my web traffic. Eventually, I started to make money from product BBB. Then I tried product FFF, which is a very lazy way to make more money online and I love it. Now I’m making full time income online and I continue to test different products. If you want to keep yourself updated with all the different products I’ve tested, opt-in to my list here….”

Can you see how all the products are linked? You’ll be surprised that people will simply follow your recommendations and buy every product you recommend, including opting into your list!

It’s like killing all the birds with one stone!

To be honest, I didn’t invent this method. It was shared to me by one of my advertisers, who have been using this online advertising strategy with great success.

The reason I’m sharing these online advertising strategies with you is because I’m still seeing many members advertising the product sales letters directly. This is not the best way to sell affiliated products. If you want to be a successful online advertiser as well as a successful affiliate, you should use one of the two strategies above.

This is an article to give you a simple guide on how to get affiliate traffic as an affiliate marketer. It’s also my answer to one of our members’ question below:

“I have been trying to do internet marketing for some client but I have not succeeded. This is by being sales representative of this company and I be paid for every customer who sign up and pay. My problem is that I don’t know how to go about it. Please help me and show me how to do it.” - Susan

Hi Susan, what you’re doing is just a form of affiliate marketing.

In your case, your probably have a personal arrangement with your client instead of through an affiliate network such as ClickBank. But the idea of getting affiliate traffic is essentially the same.

Successful affiliates either own the customers (usually because they already have a high traffic website) or they know where to find the customers (usually through search engines or online advertising).

Understanding this fact, your job of finding affiliate traffic is now simplified.

Either…

1) you build niche websites to attract targeted traffic for the product you’re promoting, or

2) you get traffic through search engine optimization and online advertisements such as Adwords.

Each of these is a huge topic by itself. My job is to point you to the right direction. You have to find out the details. (More details can be found in LeadsLeap blog.)

1) Build your niche websites

As an affiliate, your long term goal is to ‘own’ the traffic. You don’t want to keep advertising and sent traffic to your affiliated site.

When I say ‘own’ the traffic, what I mean is creating your own content website, service website or blog, and building your own list.

Yes, it’s much harder than simply posting an advertisement and making a commission straight away. But it’s a business that can potentially grow exponentially and provide you with a nice passive income in the long run.

Building your own niche empire requires long term commitment from you. It’s not a quick fix. But it’s important.

If you want a quick fix, read on……

2) Advertise

Let’s say you are helping your client to sell an apartment in Denver. You can do some keyword research and post some Adwords ads to get potential buyers.

For low competitive keywords, you can leverage on Web 2.0 sites to get top ranking in the natural search results. This will save you some money.

You may also want to advertise in various online and offline property directories.

For some products, you can also generate affiliate traffic through article marketing, a.k.a. bum marketing.

As I said in my previous blog post, the key is to find targeted affiliate traffic.

Final words….

Last but not least, I want to instill into you the idea of passive and fresh traffic. Passive traffic are regular traffic to your website. They can be people on your list or your blog patrons. Fresh traffic are new traffic from advertising, search engines or other means.

You must make it a goal to create a system that builds both passive and fresh traffic. This will give you long term success as an affiliate marketer. Once your system is up and running, you will not have to worry about affiliate traffic all the time.